In Wayne-Westland:

Beliefs cost me my job, says ousted schools chief

By Manny Lopez / The Detroit News

Patricia Brown, unseated by voters as Wayne-Westland Community Schools board president, said she can handle losing Monday's election. But she voiced anger over anonymous comments about her personal life during the campaign.

Brown, who is a lesbian, lost by 110 votes.

She is convinced a smear campaign cost her the election, and said the episode helped her learn some things about herself.

"I was confronted with either facing who I am and not winning the election or not facing it and winning," she said. "Winning an election was not more important than facing who I am."

Throughout the last week, three different flyers with anti-gay comments were handed to board members and residents on the street and at some doorsteps, claiming Brown would introduce gay themes and topics into school lessons.

"Gays have their rights in today's society and we must accept it," one unsigned handout said. "However, there is something really wrong here if we allow community leaders to promote it." The flyers also contained crude remarks about gays.

Brown, who owns a public relations and marketing firm in Westland, has been an unpaid school board member for four years and served as president this past year. Her term ends June 30.

Trouble started for Brown not long after the board unanimously approved an amendment to the school code of conduct in January, adding the words "sexual orientation" to a list of groups protected against harassment.

Some parents voiced concern about that amendment and Brown's sexual orientation, which board colleagues and others had known about earlier.

"She was sucker-punched by a bunch of very ignorant people," said Jeffrey Montgomery, president of the Triangle Foundation, a gay rights group in Detroit.